Film Top 5May 2017

1Taipei Story
(Siskel, May)
Lovingly restored edition of the 1985 second feature of gone-too-soon Taiwanese master Edward Yang (“Yi Yi”), starring Hou Hsiao-hsien (who co-wrote and co-financed) as a washed-up baseball player who can’t reconcile himself to working for his family or with fidelity to his pop-star girlfriend.

2Two By Tarkovsky: “Stalker” & “Solaris”
(Music Box, May 26-29)
4K digital restorations of two of the most esteemed of the Russian master’s seven features. The great, ambiguous, irradiated allegory “Stalker” should be a dank delight, dusted off for the big screen.

3Eight Features by Lina Wertmüller
(Siskel, May)
Swept away by an unusual destiny on taste across decades in our usual art-house: restored versions of the superheated work of the prodigiously controversial Italian melodramatist.

4The Lovers
(Opens May 12)
The latest by deadpan-comic writer-director Azazel Jacobs (“Momma’s Man,” “GoodTimesKid,” “Doll & Em”) brings Debra Winger back to the screen in tandem with ace actor Tracy Letts as a long-married couple who bring fire back to their bed by cheating on their other lovers with each other.

5A Quiet Passion
(Music Box, opens May 19)
Gifted Liverpudlian auteur Terence Davies’ eighth feature imagines a life of Emily Dickinson, with Cynthia Nixon at her finest as the painted poet. Artful frame and gesture and sound and light adorn each ache.

Author: Ray Pride

Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic, editor of Movie City News and a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine. He is also a photographer: his history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” in words and images is forthcoming. Check a few signs on Twitter (@chighostsigns) as well as daily photography on Instagram (instagram.com/raypride). Twitter: @RayPride. (Photo: Jorge Colombo.)